JORGE G. CASTAÑEDA.-
Normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba was widely seen as exactly the kind of high-value, low-hanging fruit that would be ideal for a president elected under the banner of “change.”
Etiqueta: political
How Fidel Snookered Everyone
Geopolitics makes for strange bedfellows indeed. After President Barack Obama’s performance at last weekend’s Summit of the Americas (and before that, on a quick visit to Mexico City) nearly everyone in Latin America and the United States was applauding t
Calderón’s War of Choice
Barack Obama may not have realized it while in Iraq last week, but when he comes to Mexico on April 16, he will once again be confronting the consequences of a war of choice rushed into by an unprepared president—in this case Mexico’s Felipe Calderón. Hav
The Labyrinth of Graft (copy)
Corruption is not exactly a new phenomenon in Latin America. Indeed, corruption scandals have been a fixture on the region’s landscape since time immemorial. So there is nothing in principle new or surprising about the ongoing, almost endless drama that h
El Salvador: Left won, but can it govern?
MEXICO CITY — In El Salvador, for the first time ever in Latin America, a former political-military organization that tried to gain power through the barrel of a gun has achieved its aims through the ballot box. Although the Sandinista Front in Nicaragua
COLOMBIAN CAPTIVES FREED; CHAVEZ EXPOSED
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unwittingly revealed the truth about his secret relationship with Colombia’s FARC guerrillas in early January, a development that can be seen as one of the most important in recent times in Latin America.
To achieve his s
Felipe Calderon’s daunting to-do list for Mexico
MEXICO’S SEEMINGLY endless electoral ordeal has finally concluded: Felipe Calderon took office as president on Friday, albeit under hardly auspicious circumstances. Constitutional order has prevailed — though just barely — despite the onslaught of a strid
.:: Limits of Friendship ::.
An unffettered, probing dialogue between Mexican and American political analysts on the complex relationship between their countries.
Mexico needs to be freed from unhealthy monopolies
Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s new president, kicked off his domestic policy agenda by launching military campaigns against drug lords and violence in Michoacán and along the US border, in Tijuana. The winner of last year’s election – if only by a hair-thin ma
Latin America’s Two Left Wings
Jan. 9, 2006 issue – Is Latin America swerving left? Is that the right question? Clearly, the people who are winning elections today are not the ones who won them 5, 10 or 15 years ago; their rhetoric is not the same, and their views of the world are mile